Disclaimer: All characters, names, settings etc belong to their respective copyright holders, only much of the convoluted plot, Night Wolf and a few other things are of my own creation (but inspired from many things under copyright, which aren't mine).
Chapter 25
General Alistair Lethbridge Stewart leaned back into his chair and stared at the reports, reports both on the computer screen in front of him and in paper form which were cluttering up his desk.
The clean up of the Northampton fire was progressing, however it was a slow to difficult process.
He'd had to place two teams on rotation in and around the area, stunning and removing any of the 'Ministry for Magic' wand users who kept appearing on the site with what seemed as the primary reason for being there to wipe anyone's memory of being on the site.
As an experiment one of the team leaders with his approval had cleared out the site and left the wander's to their business, but it lead to nothing.
That was early last week, now they just stunned the pairs or groups of wand users and moved them to the local train station.
Lethbridge Stewart was considering placing magical jammers on the site, however the report from the Sorcery department said otherwise…
Due to high concentrations of magic, both from the wand user's spells on the fire and the magic used by the death eaters during the confrontation, setting up an effective magical jamming field would be close to impossible.
There is however not enough ambient wand user based magic to disrupt any normal device and in theory the ambient magic will fade in time.
Note, further study of biological samples and fire damaged materials is required to determine exact amount of time till ambient magic has dropped to previous levels.
Even if it was possible, Night Wolf didn't have enough magical jammers to spare to keep out the Ministry for Magic's employees.
Night Wolf and UNIT continued to maintain an operations centre at the Northampton site as the clean up progressed, but Lethbridge Stewart had to conceded that the teams could be used elsewhere, however, the site was still drawing the occasional supporter of Voldemort, Birmingham had suggested they thought of it as a spectacle, something the rest of London couldn't ignore, a show of power.
Those that had come to look at their 'show of power against the stupid muggles' as one of them had said now occupied a space in Night Wolf's morgue.
Lethbridge Stewart picked up one of the most recent reports, the truth be known he had dozens of reports despite the various departments submitting to their own heads of department before only the most pressing came to him.
It was like, Alistair reflected fighting the Autons, or the Cybermen, or the Martians on a daily basis all the time…he let himself smile…he enjoyed his work, despite the paper work, despite everything, he still enjoyed it…and he enjoyed even more being able to hand to reigns over to Birmingham for a day and a night so he could go home, have dinner with Doris, watch the stars come out and guess which ship was orbiting over their house.
Alistair looked up from the report, which he hadn't begun to read as there was a knock on the door, he set the report back down.
"Come." Lethbridge Stewart smiled lightly as one of the most determined, laid back and mildly sarcastic people walked casually into the room, then he glanced back down at the report, it was a report of an attack on an old family estate, it suggested a link with another old family estate a few weeks ago.
"Hey Brig…" Alistair looked at him, Harry glanced back trying to gage his expression.
"Been busy Harry?" Alistair held up the police report for the first attack, the crime scene photo showed the remains of a large family estate, the words traces of high military grade explosives found in the grounds and rubble, were some that had been highlighted by the research department.
Alistair put it down and started to read, gazing up to look at Harry every so often.
"'A powerful explosion destroyed the large manor house…bodies were recovered however they were later stolen…forensics indicated that there may have been some sort of celebration taking part inside the manor house. Artefacts discovered below the mansion suggest that it was a stronghold for terrorists or drug runners…' Well Harry?" Alistair watched as Harry sighed and visibly slumped into the chair.
"Have you heard about the village a while ago just before that, where a whole lot of people were vivisected?"
Alistair nodded, of course he knew, he probably knew more than Harry did, probably more than Harry would want to know.
"The people that did that, Death Eaters, they like to party after a night out like that…if it's any consolation I had the former heir's permission…" Harry said brightening a little.
Alistair nodded for a moment, it was a useful piece of information, though without locations of Death Eater houses it wasn't something they could immediately use.
Although…Alistair started to think, if the parties needed goods, and the goods had to come from somewhere…'a job for the research department perhaps…' He thought to himself.
If the Voldemort and his death eaters continued to attack in the manner they had become accustomed to, Harry's method might be a useful method of eliminating large groups of them…
"Former heir?" Lethbridge Stewart asked curiously, usually you only became a former heir when you died, and in wand user families especially heir meant that they were the ones entitled to power, money and land, not something that a wand user would relinquish (according to much of Night Wolf's intelligence) very easily.
"What'd he do?" He added as there were situations when the heir was removed (or assassinated as the case usually was).
Harry smiled at him in an amused manner.
"Complicated, short answer discovered his real heritage, the long answer is a little more complicated."
'Little more complicated', in Night Wolf's world that could meant anything from 'alien invasion…and its our fault' to 'we just found a concord…except its 300 million years old…British Airways wants to know if they can have it back'.
"So you're picking off Voldemort's followers." Alistair queried.
"Basically, the less Death Eaters, or the less experienced ones willing to fight when it all comes down to it…" Harry said with a shrug, which Alistair had to smile at considering Harry's nonchalant attitude about his inevitable fight with Voldemort, he was just laid back now as he was when he had first met him, well almost, considering he'd met Harry in the middle of a fight.
"The less you personally have to take out to get to Voldemort." Alistair finished for Harry.
"That's about the gist of it." Harry nodded.
"Any other buildings that the police are going to put down to terrorist attacks? I assume they had their memories modified?" Alastair asked curiously, though mildly in jest.
"Do I look like I have the ear of the ministry Brigadier? Though if you listened to the prophet…" Harry chuckled.
"Birmingham informed me of the Prophet's reporting. Not the most reliable source of information." Which was the biggest understatement since the recoronation of the Queen and the reformation of the British Parliament was called a 'minor political hiccup'.
"No….No...But…" Harry started.
"But?" Alistair asked raising an eyebrow.
"No buildings but if you get any reports…" Alistair feigned a groan; Harry then started a defence. "Hey it was on their own property probably with just as vicious wards, they had another party…they're the ones who started the fires…someone from the Order was murdered."
Alistair nodded, he was pretty sure he knew which member of the Order Harry was talking about, except he was under the impression that Dumbledore was still reigning as chief.
"The Order of the Phoenix I thought…"
"Oh I've seen to Dumbledore…" Lethbridge Stewart listened as Harry explained the battle on the station, it was interesting hearing the battle from Harry's point of view, the passion and the anger, that had come through in Jones and his team's reports was very vivid from Harry's perspective, it would also assist in building a more detailed picture of events, should the need to tell the whole story to those who were injured on the station…and those who died.
"Then after I recovered from misting so many people from the station and back to…my safe house…" Harry trailed off, before smiling. "Sorry, keep forgetting I told you my most of my secrets, Hermione keeps having a go at me for the amount of secrets that I'm holding, especially 'where I spent my summer', I think she'd be really at home here…" Harry said before shrugging his shoulders once more, as to clear himself of that tangent. "Anyways…I started proceedings with the Goblins on Dumbledore to bring him up on charges, and had him removed from Hogwarts, with a little help of the Minister, who incidentally isn't in my pocket…we just had a conversation."
Alistair nodded, and wondered for a second if Harry was using one of the UNIT models of negotiation, shoot first and interrogate the remains later.
"That's…not a good set of events Harry…" Alistair said, considering he'd already had several words to say about the attack on the station when he'd originally had the debrief with Jones and his team. "Though removing him from Howgarts I thought you wanted to keep him…" He was cut off by Harry.
"Where I can see him…but the war's kicked up to high gear…" Harry was looking restless once more.
"Yes…I assume this isn't a social call Harry, or did you come to fill this old soldier in on your latest battles?" Harry laughed, Alistair smiled to himself.
"You're not old Brig…" Alistair could hear the 'but' coming. "But there is something."
"What…?"
"I wanted to go and talk to some of the people who construct or fix or something the transmats."
That was a request Alistair wasn't expecting, he though Harry might ask for weapons…explosives, or something else to continue attacking his enemies with military grade (and beyond) weapons.
"Why…?" He asked vaguely.
"I have a few theories about dealing with Voldemort…" Harry said vaguely, obviously hiding something.
"And, Harry?"
Harry held up a hand.
"Not quite yet, want to keep it all up here." Harry tapped his temple. "Just in case…plus the plan's in bits if I told you now, I think you'd think it was crazy."
"More crazy than…" Alistair gestured around him.
"Yes…but insane plans have a tendency for being the best for the job." Harry replied.
"Some of the time…" He conceited and added. "We've got both a transmat and a teleport here…"
"Could I go to one of the ship bays?" Harry asked.
"In Scotland or the Australian facility?" Lethbridge Stewart signed and typed into his computer to grant the various permissions for Harry to be able to visit, without being shot several times before being interrogated.
"Either…which ever one has some people I can have a chat to."
Alistair brought up the Gibson Desert facility, which had many more scientists working on different technologies, mainly because the Gibson Desert Facility was so much more larger than the Highlands Facility.
The Gibson Desert could build the Thylacine fighter craft whilst still constructing a vessel and have one or two docked, or be constructing more than one should the need or want arise, the Highlands facility was slightly more limited in space, though it still had a good deal of room.
"Here Mr Potter. Gibson Desert Construction and Research Facility." He toggled the screen to show an image and a set of coordinates of the facility.
"Thanks Brig. I'll share everything with you…"
"Once you're sure your plans aren't totally mad you mean?" Alistair asked curiously again.
"Something like that…" There was a slight rustle of wind inside an office with no current opening to the outside world indicating that Harry had departed.
--//
Professor Fiona Preston looked up from her work, the reports on the production of Thylacines, the notes on the materials coming in from various Research Outposts, the advanced training schedule for their squads on board that were at this moment out training recruits from the Australian Armed Forces and various other things requiring attention.
She looked up at her computer screen, which had even more status reports and general requests, updates and whatever else, the noise which made her look up was an authorisation request, someone was waiting to come in.
Through the front gate, this wasn't totally unusual, people did enter to Gibson Desert Research Facility through the 'front gate' as it were, but they generally didn't walk up from the desert and requested entry to what was probably the most secret base in Australia.
The conformation request was authorised by UNIT: Night Wolf, only 5 minutes ago.
Fiona tapped up the scanner readout of ship position to the larger monitor on the wall.
It displayed the position of ships around Earth…there weren't any at the moment, Flinders was in the bays unloading cargo, Hattah was at Outpost 1, Firefox was down for a fixup and Victory was on route.
So he…this Harry Potter…she was sure she'd heard the name in a briefing from Alistair at some point…and it was he who had authorised this Harry Potter entry to her facility, and to talk to personnel regarding matter transmission research…
Grabbing keyboard and mouse she punched up the communication channel to Night Wolf Command.
"Alistair, who's this Harry Potter, how did he get down here so fast?" She asked the image of Lethbridge Stewart.
"He's a sorcerer Fiona."
She nodded, she had several sorcerers working in the construction bays…but even…
"The transmission time between apparation and re-materialisation is still longer than a couple of minutes, especially from where you are down here, according to the time stamp on my video and when you authorised this…he spent less than 10 seconds in transit…it's…"
"Harry has some unique abilities Professer Preston…he's involved with Voldemort…you recall our conversation?"
"He's the guy who has to kill Voldemort?" She asked soberly mulling over the lack of transmission lag, something which they didn't encounter with their matter transmission systems, nothing noticible, but there was, according to Vleugal a noticeable and distinct transmission lag when the wand users apparated or used a port key, the port keys especially had a noticible 'travel time' which added to the lag.
"He is, he wants to have a talk to your matter transmission researchers…he has some esoteric ideas."
"What sort of ideas Brigadier?"
"None that he wanted to share with me." He said with a slight frown.
Fiona had to smile, this Harry must have some pretty out there ideas if he didn't want to share them with General Lethbridge Stewart, who had a pretty long track record, despite all their work, he'd pretty much done it all on Earth, the aliens coming to him.
"Fine, access granted." She hit a few buttons confirming up at the gate that they shouldn't shoot him.
"I'm sure he'll explain it all at some point Professor."
"Just make sure you explain it to me Brigadier." She tapped a button ending the conversation.
//--
Professor Tegan Vleugal looked up as Thomas and a young man walked into her workspace / lab / office and whatever else it needed to be.
"Tegan this is Harry Potter, he wanted to ask you some questions." Thomas said.
"Professor…" Harry Potter said…he used the word Professor…as a name as much as a title, she shook his hand trying to think…
"Harry Potter… have I heard of you before?" Tegan asked, a flash of…several forms of recognition passed over his face.
"He was on the Victory's mission."
"Oh the magic wood on P788. Yes everyone's very excited about the additions they can make." She knew now, a lot of the departments were very excited about the energy potential of the trees and its wood recovered from the planet, there were already fast grow farms being set up, it wasn't really her field, but it seemed that this small discovery would vastly enhance the manner in which the ships and Thylacines manoeuvred. "So what can I do for you Mr Potter?"
"Well…" He trailed off for a second, seemingly tossing around in his mind how to ask his question. Then he took a breath.
"I was wondering if it's possible to dematerialise a person and keep them dematerialised, in a self contained unit, and then rematerialise them, without interfacing said unit with a ship."
Tegan raised an eyebrow, for a guy who probably wasn't even 18 he'd succinctly asked a question involving quite a bit of complicated technology, and managed to sound as though he knew what he wanted.
"Why would you want to do something like that?" She asked first off, it wasn't an idea that hadn't been proposed before, but it didn't serve any practical purposes.
"How up to date are you on the wand holding wizarding world?" He asked curiously. Tegan nodded gently to herself.
"Some people from Night Wolf and even some from others places join us down here…" Then there were the various meetings, discussions and whatever else they did each week or so.
"So you don't know about Voldemort and the war…" He trailed off, she shook her head slowly as did Thomas, there had been mentions of some trouble in England and Europe, but they practically worked in their own small environment down here, barring the alien invasion attempts and whatever.
"Well the very compacted gist is, there's a this guy a evil wizard who had already died once trying to kill me and lived somewhere near death as a soul…or energy, he's been re-corporalised and has a body now. There's also a prophecy that states that I have to kill him. Oh his name's Voldemort…knew I forgot something." He said quickly.
"You can't kill him using a transmat. The energy is still around in either of the stages, even if you don't rematerialise him assuming he's survived as energy once he can most probably do it again…of course I'm only guess." She stated, Harry Potter smiled almost knowingly…obviously he'd considered this.
"That isn't my intention, I just want to be able to transport him as energy to the next stage of my plan…"
"Your plan?" Thomas asked.
"I'm still trying to get it together." Harry Potter said with a bit of a shrug.
"Well…the transmat system isn't big…but it's not small enough to carry around, even the smallest systems I've created still aren't small enough to carry…" Harry Potter slumped a little, so had some of the Night Wolf strategists, the technology required a certain amount of bulk. "But a container to contain the dematerialised energy is simple enough construct and carry on a small vessel…it's just a matter of reprogramming the transmat on a ship to direct the energy to the containment instead of rematerialising it." Though the container and the systems attached to it weren't light enough to simply carry around.
"So it is possible…" Potter trailed off.
"Yes…the second stage of your 'plan', would be to rematerialise the energy back to somewhere else…would require a certain amount of energy in the transmat to rematerialise the energy without being in a transmat area…"
"But it is possible…" Potter trailed off again, obviously thinking.
Tegan was about to say something as the phone rang, Thomas grabbed.
"…General…yes he's…should I…yes…" Thomas looked to Potter.
"Mr Potter, it's General Lethbridge-Stewart for you says it's urgent." Tegan looked again at Harry Potter, he had friends in high and secretive places.
"Brigadier?" Potter answered the phone with a lot of casualness.
"Yes…it's amazing…I'm assuming you didn't call to chat about my surroundings." He said with a sense of wonder.
"I'll be right there, where are you?" Potter listened to the reply nodding to himself. "I'll be right there…"
"It was really great meeting you two, I've got to fly, umm, would it be ok if I dropped by later in the week to discuss this…and some other matters in more detail?" Potter said quickly. Tegan wondered how he was going to get anywhere quickly, apparation, the wand user's method of matter transportation was faster than conventional means, but it wasn't quick, and supposedly given how deep they were conventional wand user methods would never find them, or be able to get out.
"Ye of course Mr Potter."
"I'll show you back to the teleport area." Thomas had in his hand a teleport lock on device, that would get Potter up to the surface, but there weren't any ships in orbit to act as a relay station.
"No need. Adieu." He waved his hand and he seemed to fade away as though riding the wind.
Tegan was staring at the air that formerly held Harry Potter, who had disappeared, without using standard apparition, and without the use of any external methods of matter transmission.
--//
Lethbridge Stewart regarded the white owl in front of him, it had been brought down from its usually spot where it delivered letters and waited for replies up in the tower spire.
It had stead fast refused to allow him to take the letter from it, Harry after all was only a few seconds away.
But he had to give it to the designers of the security at the Gibson Desert Research Facility, if an wand user owl couldn't find it's target then the security was up to scratch.
Lethbridge Stewart looked up as the air in front of his desk solidified into the form of a person, that person had just hung up the phone less than 10 seconds ago and he didn't even break his stride as he did so.
"That was fast Harry."
"Yes…" Harry gazed down at the owl looking indignantly at Lethbridge Stewart. "Hedwig, now…what's so urgen?" Harry asked the owl on the Brigadier's desk, at leaped into the air and dropped the letter into Harry's hands.
Lethbridge Stewart watched as Harry read through the letter a scowl forming as he did so.
"Here Brigadier." Harry offered the letter, Lethbridge Stewart took the offered letter.
Harry
According to my sources inside the werewolf community and Moody's own sources, Voldemort has recruited a quite many vampires to his cause, he plans to attack Diagon Alley, but not just that, he plans on using the vampires to attack the area surrounding Diagon Alley including the Leakey Couldran and muggle London tonight…
I tried Sorrento you weren't home, I assume you're further a field…
Please contact me as soon as possible, we're organising the order and have contacted the ministry to fight for Diagon but we're vastly out numbered still…
Remus
P.S. I know we're asking a lot…but if there's one thing I've learnt it's to not underestimate you…
"This doesn't look good Harry…especially the 'muggle' London part…" Lethbridge Stewart stressed the 'muggle' part, he disliked the word. "I could get you a squad from Night Wolf to back you up on this…"
That was pushing it…if Harry did want a squad it would probably be half a squad, they had various smaller skirmishes on the go…they had also identified two larger encampments on 'old money' land, which were suggested staging points…possibly for these vampires, or more likely for something else living and breathing, Lethbridge Stewart had already authorised the attack on the encampments…and they'd need many of their forces on it, plus those who weren't already battling attacks by groups supporting Voldemort.
Harry shook his head.
"I don't want you or your people any more involved than you have to be…" Lethbridge Stewart watched as Harry checked his watch and sighed slowly in a tired manner.
"I have a few things…which I've been practising on an off, it should help…I need to make a trip home…and then to see Remus…can I borrow a bit of paper?"
Alistair passed over a plain piece of paper wondering exactly what 'a few things' were when it came to Harry Potter…knowing the training he'd helped with, and what the people around Night Wolf had imbued into Harry Potter, it really could be anything, but he had a feeling that it was likely to be Harry's own brand of 'a few things'.
Harry scribbled a note and folded it in half holding it out for his owl to take.
"Alright Hedwig, let's go." The owl glided off his shoulder and flew back around settling onto his shoulder once more.
"Brig, thanks for allowing me to visit Gibson, I might need to drop back there to finish discussing things…"
"And when are you going to explain it to me?" Alistair asked curiously.
"When it doesn't sound…" Harry trailed off allowing Alistair to speak.
"It must be something pretty amazing if you're not willing to share it…But I'm willing to wait for a surprise." 'Just not too long, surprise has a habit to turn into mystery…' Alistair thought to himself.
"Let's go Hedwig." Harry nodded to Lethbridge Stewart and as though a light breeze came through his office Harry Potter disappeared leaving Alistair to again wonder exactly what was Harry planning, not just for the fight ahead, but the war's final battle which was fast approaching.
--//
Righty, I know not a lot of action in this chapter, but it is a chapter that needed to happen to begin to set up things for the final battle and many more battles before that.
Some may recognise parts of this chapter as chapters 39 and 40 of Sorcery, UNITed, Independence, Space.
Much of my original work has been re-worked, in fact the only old stuff from those two chapters is the dialogue, all the other impressions and thoughts and everything else is new.
Thanks for reading and I will endeavour to reply to all reviewers (and thanks for everyone who does review).